'95 Grads Full Of Humor

Principal Receives Apples As Gifts

June 17, 1995|By MATHEW PAUST Daily Press

Gloucester High School's Class of '95 demonstrated its good humor in several ways Friday night during commencement.

Delayed nearly half and hour by a faulty sound system, the 356 about-to-be graduates amused themselves, their relatives and friends, first by playing with several beach balls and balloons while they stood next to their chairs.

After about 10 minutes, Principal Chip Gray motioned them to sit. They did, but their exuberance again manifested itself, this time with sporadic waves of red-and-white-robed bodies, standing and sitting in sequence along some of the rows.

When things finally got underway, the ceremony went without a hitch, and with more good humor, and a touch of elegance: A quartet of seniors sang the Star Spangled Banner, accompanied on violin by senior Paul Kennedy Jr.

Apples - every senior had one - were handed to Gray as each graduate received a diploma, keeping with a tradition started by a prior graduating class of giving the popular principal a symbolic token gift.

Class President Reggie Jackson explained that the apples were to be a reminder that this year's grads, benefiting from their education at Gloucester High, expected to go far and wide in their pursuit of success.

For Gray, Jackson said, "an apple a day keeps the grads away."

Jackson himself doesn't plan to stray too far. Moments before he joined the procession onto the athletic field, he said that after some time off to relax, he would head for Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia and study sports medicine. Afterwards, the articulate, athletic student, who was voted "best all-around" by his classmates, might return to Gloucester, he said.

Other grads' plans would more closely follow the expectation symbolized by their apples: Heather Gayle of Zanoni said she wants to join President Clinton's AmeriCorps, a 10-month national service program that's "sort of like the Peace Corps." Michael Goetz of Belroi leaves in a week for Louisiana, to study computer engineering at LSU. Jennifer Ferguson of White Marsh is heading first to Richmond, to study illustration and cartoon animation at Virginia Commonwealth University. After that, she has her heart set on a job with Disney.

Class salutatorian Eleanor L. Laise told her classmates they were about to embark on a new game of the old childhood standby, hide-and-seek. When they were kids, the bullies tended to be the seekers, and controlled the game. It'll be different now, she said.

"We can choose if we're going to be hiders or seekers. If we choose to be hiders, then why did we even bother to come to school? If we choose to be seekers, what can keep us from greatness?" Laise said.

She concluded, "The game starts now. It's hide-and-seek, and you are `it'."

Valedictorian Timothy A. Bolger started with a prayer, and said the grads needed self confidence in order to foil the popular perception of their generation as cynical, apathetic and lazy.

He cited the adage, "If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."